A router in a content-centric network (CCN) is configured with a caching function, which can rapidly respond to a request from user equipment, so as to save bandwidth of the CCN. For example, user equipment sends a request to a router on a content delivery path, and the content delivery path is a packet transmission path between the user equipment and a server. The content delivery path includes at least one router, the server is configured to provide content corresponding to the request, and a name of the content is carried in the request. The router includes a content store (CS) for caching the content. If it is determined that the content is cached in the CS, the router may send the content cached in the CS to the user equipment according to the name of the content. If it is determined that the content is not cached in the CS, the router queries, in a stored pending interest table (PIT), whether an entry corresponding to the name of the content exists. If an entry corresponding to the name of the content exists in the PIT, an interface for receiving the request is added to the PIT. If no entry corresponding to the name of the content exists in the PIT, an entry corresponding to the name of the content is added in the PIT and the content is requested from the server. The router may cache the content from the server according to a cache placement strategy.
In an existing cache placement strategy, an on-path caching strategy determines a caching location of content mainly according to a popularity of the content. The popularity of the content may be expressed by a quantity of times of requesting the content within a preset time, the requesting is requesting the same content, and the caching location of the content is a router for caching the content. For example, a local popularity based caching (LPBC) strategy is that a router caches content with a highest popularity. When performing caching according to the LPBC strategy, the router takes only the popularity of the content into account, without taking impact of caching the content on network bandwidth into account.